2017-03-16 16:43:58

Hello,
@joshknnd1982 I understand your viewpoint, but In my opinion even if Android is getting well in Accessibility related stuff, I think there are some things we couldn't control (even if they say Talkback is Open source), it needs more hardware resources than almost any Linux distribution, lacks some connectivity in most devices (USB, Ethernet, HDMI ports if needed), and these Linux sistems allows you to modify or write every piece of code that can be improved for adding more accessibility to your environment. As @SLJ said, The device will include a set of accessible applications and these applications will be made based in a Library for handling Graphical interfaces, so it will be easier to extend them or add new applications. I can modify and extend the functionality of the default screen reader (I am working in the development team of Fenrir) and every problem will likely to have a bugfix.
@Guitarman now I am totally blind, but I was sighted some years ago. The way I learnt how to work with electronics is not a secret, I learnt the basics when I could see circuitry and diagrams, now I have to ask someone to help me with things that I am not able to do by myself. Usually I am able to read a datasheet and tell to this person (a friend of mine) that I want a circuit with a set of features (inputs, outputs, other boards or GPIO pins in a specified order) and when he is done I can play with them.

2017-03-16 19:30:29

Alright Josh, first of all calm down with the multiple posts. No offense dude, but it gets frustrating going through heading after heading. If you wanna write a novel, do it in a post or two, that's no problem. Also, as great as the rca tablet may be especially for 80 bucks, you really should remember that the US and surrounding countries have a huge marketshare for hundreds of phones and tablets. With that come the insanely cheap tablets. Exclusiveness is also a huge problem as well. There's these cheap ripoff mediatech tablets that are sold via prime, yeah that's right, prime exclusive items, and unless you root them, you've got prime ads all over the place like it's windows 10. Cheap as they may be, those are for prime members. The point is that just because you can get something for next to nothing here in the US, that may mean nothing to a developing country where their equivalent of $80 is so much more for them. Besides, as great as Android is, it can't please everyone, and I've come to understand that Android is really an operating system for the technically inclined group of mobile users, and IOS is for the people that want something that just works. Why do I say this? Android may be accessible out of the box, but more apps are required to enrich the experience. By finding out what works and what doesn't, you really know a lot more about your operating system and its accessibility. It really makes you feel like the phone is yours. But Android can't please everyone. I've seen some folks complaining about the Braillenote Touch because the new Android ui is confusing, the world of apps, stuff like that. They do have valid points. I for one love my Touch, but I also have been a longtime Android user. I've seen it grow with damn near every new release, and a lot of these other people are too quick to judge. My point? Most people who use notetakers aren't ready to dive into an open mainstream operating system, with a world of apps, social media, and malware if you're not careful. As much as I didn't like how the older braillenotes had such a tight shell around windows ce, I could see how useful that could be for someone who's a little hesitant on jumping into the technological world. The MK speech notetaker basically does this, i e, a consistent interface for those who rely on it, with the full power of a Linux box for those who want it. Best of both worlds.

2017-03-16 21:22:34

so mk speech would be sort of like the old braillePlus that ran Linux? where you had a menu, suite of apps, but then if you are more advanced you could run a console with speakup, right? and if you guys use the mate desktop and strip some unneeded stuff out, you could make it real lightweight. Also will it stay up to date with the latest version of orca? if using debian ubuntu mate, it'll need the accessibility PPA added to keep the screen reader updated and if using an arch-base, you could just let it alone because arch has a nice rolling release. also for those who wish, maybe you could contract with oralux and offer IBM viavoice or eloquence for those who want it. pair it with the orbit20 braille display and brltty and you should have a pretty good notetaker that can do a lot of stuff. But orca will probably need modifying to accept 6-key entry, so will the mate desktop I'm guessing. though if you want it as a notetaker and for durability I'd say maybe give it at least 32gb of ssd solid state storeage. Then it will run nice and fast and will be pretty much immune to drops and such. how much will this cost in the united states? I may want to buy one just to have and play around with it. I like all types of OS they are fun to use and play with. oh and you may want to have espeak set to a good sounding voice and set to talk slow for the most understandability.

2017-03-16 23:00:07

I believe he's aiming to sell it for 300 bucks. You're right in that it's basically a modernized/expanded braille plus concept-wise. Except now you also have a desktop. I'm sure Orca will remain up to date. Unfortunately Viavoice, or Voxin as it's called on Linux, is absolutely out of the question because the Viavoice binary can't run on Arm architecture. Trust me, I learned this the hard way when I bought it for my Raspberry Pi. Credit to their excellent customer support, I did get an immediate refund.

2018-01-10 21:47:51

What happened with this great project?

2018-01-11 02:25:51

not sure. maybe it died? like other projects that came, were here for awhile or were just concepts, and then died?

2018-01-11 03:30:55

I think I know why the project died. "Hey guys, I have something that's better than the MK speak, it's an RCA tablet, and it's for $80! It has this cool magnetic keyboard dock. BTW, did I tell you about this cool RCA tablet for $80? Guys, you need to try this $80 RCA tablet! Did I mention I have an RCA tablet for $80 that has a keyboard dock on it? $80 man, $80!" If I was developing something and I saw someone making 6 or 7 posts about how my product sucks and advertising something else, I'd quit too.

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2018-01-11 03:39:49

@shotgunshell
Unfortunately, this is why we can never have nice things. (or at least never for long)

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. - Mark Twain

2018-01-11 18:37:43

if it weren't the RCA $80 android tablet, then it would have been a $200 hp stream or something similar that came along and killed the project. After all, for education, and noteTaker purposes, you could get something like hp stream, put NVDA on it, maybe a copy of office, and then you can write all your papers, and even read and do math with NVDA, hook up a braille display and more. For mk-notetaker to have succeeded, it would have had to do something very unique the already inexpensive mainstream devices could not already do.

2018-01-11 21:18:13

Hi,
I hope you all are doing well, I just wanted to do Some clarifications.

1. I did (almost) all the project's research, and also invested a considerable amount of money in building the first prototype and software that may be included there. Basically it was running in a modified raspbian install with pre-loaded software. As this project was running a donation campaing and didn't get so much funding, eventually I got more things to do at work, my life changed too and I could not keep spending money and time in this project. Hope I will finish this just for my own fun someday. Wether the project was needed or not is another matter I think.
2. I understand $80 devices are so interesting, but the project was intended to give everyone a customized experience as these devices couldn't do. In some countries people can't afford devices like notetakers due to different reasons an this project was trying to bring them the same kind of experience (even you would be able to connect a Braille Display via BRLTTY) for a reduced price and being open source, so everyone with a bit of coding skills could get the device and hack it for other purposes (not only education). I see your point but am not agree (notetakers are still being sold for a reason...).

Best regards.

2018-01-11 21:23:22

Yes, the cheapest notetaker in Czech republic costs 3000 usd. I am a writer and I am now in the situation, where I need a notetaker and I have at this time 300 usd which I can invest. I don't want Android tablet with keyboard, Transformer books were good, but they are unawailable in Czech for a long time.

2018-01-11 23:00:56 (edited by defender 2018-01-11 23:05:15)

I'm amazed that Joshknnd1982 didn't get publicly warned by the mods for pulling that ridiculous bullshit.
Multiple posts about the same fucking thing, constant harassment of the OP, essentially advertising a commercial product...
If 1982 is the year Josh was born, than I've lost a bit of faith in humanity, because that looked like the kind of crap a 10 year old would pull.


I kinda wana know what was going through his head when he just kept posting, and posting, and posting, all while using essentially the same exact sentence every god damn time.
How can you be so disrespectful and immature man, not only to Emanual but the forum as well...
You may not see the point of what he's trying to do, but continuously yelling over top of him with your obviously biased opinion is the stupidest possible way of expressing it.

2018-01-11 23:23:33

I certainly agree with @Defender as far as not being respectful to the OP and his project. Even if it doesn't seem like something that would be useful or appealing to you, there are so many different people who could benefit. Like Manuel explained, it would be very helpful for those in countries who would have a hard time receiving the products we are all already familiar with. There are some really great intentions behind this project, so it just seems unfair to try and push it aside and promote a different product. It's similar to trying to push and promote a game by a different developer in a topic where a new developer is trying to get his game off the ground. It's too bad that this didn't get the support that it needed, as I am very interested in the concept.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. - Mark Twain

2018-01-12 02:05:29 (edited by Dan Gero 2018-01-12 02:12:14)

@manuelcortez Since you said this was open sourced, honestly what I would do at this point is just put the source code up on your website or gethub or similar. It would make things a lot easier on you, because people can modify the source and keep it up to date for you. As for Josh's posts, I reported 1 out of the 8 he made to the mods. I hope they do something about this, it's really sad to see good products like this die because of other people's inability to recognize someone's situation and how these devices can help them.

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2018-01-12 02:45:49

right, this has been happening time and time again by the same poster even though people here have been very patient and considerate with the person (mentioned above)
. I was pretty interested on that notetaker since i lost the one I had bought long ago (by saving money and apreciating the work that went behind it just like the rest of the world does) . but thanks a lot for the kindness to make it an open sourced creation. Hopefully some kind of institution or some of us when we have sufficient ambition might pick up from where you left of, Manuel.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2018-01-13 17:49:28

MODERATION!
@joshknnd1982, your overall attitude out here towards devs and their products, particularly this one as reported by devoted forumites is bordering on insulting!  Please, do us a favor and curb it before we have to do it for you!

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2018-01-14 17:42:24

I really don't get that type of thing, I mean, the dude was trying to make something for the betterment of his fellows, and someone gotta come here and shit all over it.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2018-01-15 20:09:02

I really do hate this.  so what if there is a $80 tablet. It has it's downsides, it has good things, so does this one. I personally love the idea, I mean, if it at the same time can be something very simple for nubies it still can be advanced by those that know coding. It's sad how it musst be dropped because someone decided to spam, yes, spam the topic advertising an other product just because, oeh, I don't know, because he has nothing something smarter to do. But really, why cant people be constructive for a change? it's ok to say that this may sound pointless because there are such alternatives, but spamming in any way is not ok.
ok, now my suggestions.
1. will this be able to run windows software with something like wine?
2. If we so wish, can we connect a display to it and make it show graphics on it? I mean use an external display, not an internal thing.
that's all for now, and btw, are you going to bring the website back up? It's currently down so I wasn't able to see the sspecs.

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2018-01-16 09:09:08

I really like the idea of the cheep notetaker...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
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2018-01-18 02:32:08

Hi.
Darn I'm disappointed, this sounded like an excellent project, I really wanted one, I'm very sad this is the end of this notetaker at least for now. I hope it can be finished someday, I think something like this would benefit us all!
Really you just can't make some people happy nowadays, their either wining because the product is missing a small feature, or bashing the product itself and the people who own it.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2018-01-18 05:28:24 (edited by jack 2018-01-18 05:29:41)

Agreed, well the sad truth is that most of the entitled folks here in the US have no idea what the hell a marketshare difference is in other countries. Like I said before, the heavily pimped $80 device is most likely not available in other countries with less stable economies/very different marketshares. Think about it! If some software doesn't even have a marketshare, think Firefox in China, which is why it's no accident that most Chinese screenreaders happen to not have support for Firefox. If certain software doesn't get around in other countries, then you can bet your ass these cheap tablets spoken of may not get around to other countries either. Either way, I said it before and I'll say it again, not, everyone, is, comfortable, with, a, tablet! And why have a tablet when you can have it all in one? Screw the keyboard dock, that's just one more thing you have to carry and charge! Braille display? Subject to bluetooth connection fallouts. Alright, now that I'm done explaining it for the umpteenth time, let's get to a few honest questions.
Regarding Wine: Honestly wouldn't be so sure, sadly. I've heard Wine can be a pain in the ass on arm devices of which the mk speech unit would've been. The problem here has everything to do with the fact that windows apps are obviously compiled for the x86 architectures we're familiar with in the pc's. Rasbian Gnu/Linux doesn't contain its own x86 compatibility layer. There's one you can purchase called ExaGear Desktop, but the accessibility on that thing would be questionable at best, considering it's a simulated desktop environment, i.e a full-on subsystem. So unfortunately the short answer would be no.
2. External display-out? Absolutely, and there would be no extra peripherals needed as the Pi has an hdmi port already, and on top of that the 3.5mm output jack is a composite audio/analog video jack, so you folks still using rca tv's aren't entirely left in the dust. Lol! From what I understand this thing would've just ran a modified Rasbian with an added layer of software and obviously a custom skin.
Manuel, possible option for you. Not sure if this would entirely solve the problem of getting this into the hands of folks in developing countries depending on what becomes of this, but have you considered going the diy route? I.e, if you don't have the time to invest in manufacturing and selling the device, but you just about had the software complete, you could put assembly instructions up on the site plus an image. the problem is that probably wouldn't make you much money if people were independently selling diy-assembled notetakers, the software being entirely open-source. I guess it's an option among many. It seems to be the way some are going, I did see something that had a similar objective like the mk speech, i.e make a simple project that is easy to get your hands on provided you can assemble it or have someone else assemble it. It was the perky line of projects, perky pup, perky plank, perky pro. Basically the same idea software-wise, but different variants. One with a full-sized keyboard, one designed more like a desktop, one somewhat portable. It all involved the purchase of some low-level stuff to hold the thing together, about the highest profile item there was was the mechanical keyboard they suggested. By the way, I heard about this on the raspberry pi list, and it seemed like this guy had similar goals, even despite a different approach and a different target audience. Perhaps both software stacks, mk speech's and perky combined may make a pretty damn good collaborative effort, who knows what could come out of open source/diy.